Neel Dutt - It All Started with a D Chord

In Conversation with Anjum Katyal

There’s a buzz on the Bengali film music scene, and a young lad called Neel Dutt is a major reason for it. His music for recent offbeat, youth-oriented films like The Bong Connection and Chalo, Let’s Go, directed by his father Anjan Dutt, has been making waves. It’s a new, young sound, with a blues and folk rock feel, and suddenly popular singers and musicians one hears on college campuses and in music venues all over Kolkata are being heard in his songs. This feels like the start of something fresh, youthful and exciting - and what better way to find out than by talking to Neel himself?

When did you start writing your own music?

In class 11-12 I started doing jingles - for Boroline, Mother Dairy, Closeup - both for radio and TV. By the time I was in college, I was doing a lot of shows as a guitarist, I made friends with bands, knew people in the music industry, learnt about recording - and I started writing my own songs, for myself. In three years in college, I got the opportunity to compose music for telefilms and documentaries. Not only with my dad, with Kaushik Ganguly, Shyamal Sengupta - ETV used to do a lot of telefilms then, and I ended up doing music for 40 telefilms at least. That was a valuable experience for me. A lot of people saw those telefilms and appreciated my music.

After college I took up a job - I had decided that music would always be a part of me but I was never going to do it full time. At that time - around 1999 - the Bangla band movement had not gained momentum. I worked for a few months, and then I applied to Calcutta University for my MA in English. I had heard so much about College Street, I wanted to study there. Those two years, 2000-02 were very important for me. My MA was a huge learning experience. I started taking reading and writing much more seriously. I started listening to Bob Dylan, and to Rabindra sangeet. I began to understand and appreciate the lyrics. I made wonderful friends, and I composed music for my first feature film, Bow Barracks Forever. When I was at university. Unfortunately it got released much later, after The Bong Connection.

What were the musical elements you were aiming at in the music for your first film?

It was about Bow Barracks, a place where mostly Anglo-Indians live, with some Parsis, Muslims, Goan Christians. We were familiar with the milieu - it has an environment of its own. Bow Barracks Forever was challenging because the songs are in English, and I needed to incorporate something from where I am, Kolkata. At the same time it has to be popular. I think that simplicity is the most attractive feature, in a song. The guitar was my chief instrument. I thought of keeping the music very simple, like pop rock, early rock. The briefing from my father, the director, was that the soundtrack should have a flavour of the 60s. That was the period when the Anglo-Indians thrived in the city’s music scene. So I also had to use strings, jazz chords, improvisations, live drums, piano. I used very few musicians.

Did you use regular session musicians?

I mixed it up, I used both industry sessions musicians, and those from the rock, non-film music world. We needed singers who could sing in English, but with an element of surprise. So we contacted Shaan. I felt that people of all ages still enjoy The Beatles, and so would the people in Bow Barracks. So we adapted ‘I Saw Her Standing There’. We called it ‘Jab Maine Dekha Usey Standing There’. We used a sort of Hinglish, and if you listen to the song, it’s about when a guy meets a girl and falls in love, but it’s very contemporary in its references, it’s got references to a mobile phone etc that a teenager of today will identify with. It is also a tribute to the songwriters of the 60s. It’s got images you’ll find in the Beatles, or a Cliff Richard or Neil Diamond song. It’s got a 60s pop feel. It was what was needed in the film - I couldn’t inject hiphop or disco or put in Hindi lyrics or get a sound like contemporary Bengali music - I had to be faithful to the demands of the film. But people who listened to the music loved it. People close to me think it’s my best work.

We formed a band called Bow Street Blues just to promote the music of the film. We did a show in Mumbai (at Not Just Jazz by the Bay), one in Pune, one at Someplace Else in Cal. We were doing 60s pop songs, coupled with songs from the film, talking about Anglo-Indians of that era, and then leading into the film.

That’s something you’ve developed into a pattern now, right? Doing live shows to support and promote the film and its music?

Yes, and why not? We’re musicians and so it seems natural. My next work was Bong Connection, and I was more confident by this time. My music associate in the film was Raja [Deb, of 21 Grams]. It was a new age film, and my producer is as young as I am. He’s from America. He was very enthusiastic, he said you must do something with hiphop and lounge in Bengali music.

We decided to rearrange a traditional Rabindra sangeet song. We had a certain soundscape in mind.

The soundtrack of Bunty and Babli was an inspiration - It’s got a desi flavour, but is arranged beautifully, with fusion, lounge elements . . . we decided on that as our approach. The song we chose, ‘Pagla Hawa, Badal Dine’ is a very popular one. I changed the rhythm completely, from a ¾ to 4/4 beat. We got Shreya Ghoshal and Nachiketa to sing it - both are very peppy, vibrant voices. I knew Shreya would enjoy singing it, and Nachi-da, after so many years, wants to sing something different. His voice has a rawness which is very important for a song like ‘Pagla Hawa’ - because I wanted them to sing it very differently. Not to follow the exact notes that are in the Swaralipi. For many years, Rabindra sangeet was not allowed that liberty, of improvising on the songs. And the younger generation found it boring, too serious, monotonous. Once the copyright restriction was lifted, I was interested in seeing what could be done with the songs. It was an experiment for us. We added techno beats, violins, Indian percussion as well as trance loops. And it worked. It worked pretty well.

We got Shaan to sing another song, a Bengali song, ‘Majhi Re’, which became a hit. It had Hindi lyrics in it, written by my father and I. Bong Connection was a fun experience for me, and it changed my life in a way. I had shifted to Delhi and was working there, sure that nothing was going to happen with music. So I was in Delhi when I got the offer to do the music for Bong Connection. I came down. The whole music was recorded, dubbed, mixed and completed in 10-12 days. I had been working on the soundtrack in Delhi, which is also why I was so open to trance, techno, hiphop. I would never have appreciated them in Cal. Somehow the Bengali youth is stubborn - it has to be rock or nothing. They think everything else is inferior, pop has no history etc. Delhi is more open, they don’t mind doing bhangra or ‘Dumadum Mast Kalandar’ or headbanging. So when my dad suggested using techno beats in Rabindra sangeet, I said why not? It’s not blasphemy. If I can do it interestingly, musically, why not?

So during Bong Connection things really opened up. The film was a huge hit, and things started happening for me. Commercially if you’re successful, people are willing to try out working with you.

As a music director for feature films, what is the chronology?

Bow Barracks, Bong Connection, BBD, which is a Hindi film, Brake Fail, Chalo Let’s Go, and an English film, Chowrasta. All are my dad’s except Brake Fail, which is by Kaushik Ganguly.

Kolkata has an active music scene, with rock bands and so on. You’ve always used a combination of musicians from within and outside the industry -

I think that the non-industry musicians have a much more contemporary approach. Thank goodness that in the industry I work with people like Baby [Sovon]-da, who keeps himself totally up to date, with sequencing and so on. As for the non-industry musicians, they are all really open to doing something interesting and different. They are great musicians. And also, the kind of music I’m doing, western music - these musicians are really seeped in it. I use Bombay musicians also - trumpet and sax players. There aren’t many in Cal. In BBD I used Kishore Soda on trumpet. He used to play with R. D. Burman. A jazz track, a great experience for me.

With the smaller budget films being made here in Kolkata there seems to be a reversal of what happens in the Hindi film music scene. There, Bollywood dominates, and even non-film music flows out of the whole Hindi film music industry. In Kolkata it is the opposite. It is as if the non-film music world, which is flourishing and full of really good musicians and artistes with established reputations and a fan following, is feeding and rejuvenating the Bengali film music scene, which was in the doldrums.

In fact, that’s exactly what our intention is. If you go back to the 60s, Hemanta Mukherjee and Manna Dey were ‘album’ singers, who composed their own songs - and then the film industry took them up as playback singers, to make their film music albums popular. Later, the commercial music scenario in Bengali films had a Sonu Niigaam or an Udit Narayan or a Shaan singing Bengali songs. Since the 90s, Bengali music has become popular, with its own pop stars and rock stars - so why not use them in films? That is why I have used Rupam [Islam] Rupankar, Nachiketa, Chandrabindoo. Now Bombay is taking Rupam, James from Bangladesh, they are taking a Mohiner Ghoraguli song and doing it in Hindi. The Bengali film music scene has to understand the potential of commercial success for film music. In Bombay, a film can never do without music - the first thing they do is record the music and do a huge puja and so on. Here the last thing they bother with is the music. Thank goodness that’s changing.

I’m very hopeful about the music scene in Cal - it is doing well, and the film music scene, as you said, it is no longer in the doldrums. People under the age of 40 are interested in departures, they are tired of the typical mainstream stuff. When they see new actors, or different musicians associated with a film, they are willing to try it out and they now have the money to go to multiplexes and shopping malls. So it looks hopeful.

ANJUM KATYAL is a professional arts and culture editor who also writes poetry, does the occasional translation and sings the blues. She is Editor, Saregama

Click here for songs by Neel Dutt